What Is “Academic” Writing? - WAC Clearinghouse

What Is “Academic” Writing?by L. Lennie IrvinThis essay is a chapter in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,Volume 1, a peer-reviewed open textbook series for the writingclassroom, and is published through Parlor Press.The full volume and individual chapter downloads are available forfree from the following sites: Writing Spaces: http://writingspaces.org/essays Parlor Press: http://parlorpress.com/writingspaces WAC Clearinghouse: http://wac.colostate.edu/books/Print versions of the volume are available for purchase directlyfrom Parlor Press and through other booksellers.To learn about participating in the Writing Spaces project, visit theWriting Spaces website at http://writingspaces.org/.This essay is available under a Creative Commons License subject to the WritingSpaces Terms of Use. More information, such as the specific license being used,is available at the bottom of the first page of the chapter. 2010 by the respective author(s). For reprint rights and other permissions,contact the original author(s).Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataWriting spaces : readings on writing. Volume 1 / edited by Charles Loweand Pavel Zemliansky.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-60235-184-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-185-1(adobe ebook)1. College readers. 2. English language--Rhetoric. I. Lowe, Charles,1965- II. Zemliansky, Pavel.PE1417.W735 2010808’.0427--dc222010019487

What Is “Academic” Writing?L. Lennie IrvinIntroduction: The Academic Writing TaskAs a new college student, you may have a lot of anxiety and questionsabout the writing you’ll do in college.* That word “academic,” especially, may turn your stomach or turn your nose. However, with thisfirst year composition class, you begin one of the only classes in yourentire college career where you will focus on learning to write. Giventhe importance of writing as a communication skill, I urge you to consider this class as a gift and make the most of it. But writing is hard,and writing in college may resemble playing a familiar game by completely new rules (that often are unstated). This chapter is designedto introduce you to what academic writing is like, and hopefully easeyour transition as you face these daunting writing challenges.So here’s the secret. Your success with academic writing dependsupon how well you understand what you are doing as you write andthen how you approach the writing task. Early research done on collegewriters discovered that whether students produced a successful piece ofwriting depended largely upon their representation of the writing task.The writers’ mental model for picturing their task made a huge differ* This work is licensed under the Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License and is subject to theWriting Spaces Terms of Use. To view a copy of this license, visit s/ or send a letter to CreativeCommons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105,USA. To view the Writing Spaces Terms of Use, visit http://writingspaces.org/terms-of-use.3

4L. Lennie Irvinence. Most people as they start college have wildly strange ideas aboutwhat they are doing when they write an essay, or worse—they haveno clear idea at all. I freely admit my own past as a clueless freshmanwriter, and it’s out of this sympathy as well as twenty years of teachingcollege writing that I hope to provide you with something useful. Sograb a cup of coffee or a diet coke, find a comfortable chair with goodlight, and let’s explore together this activity of academic writing you’llbe asked to do in college. We will start by clearing up some of thosewild misconceptions people often arrive at college possessing. Thenwe will dig more deeply into the components of the academic writingsituation and nature of the writing task.Myths about WritingThough I don’t imagine an episode of MythBusters will be based onthe misconceptions about writing we are about to look at, you’d stillbe surprised at some of the things people will believe about writing.You may find lurking within you viral elements of these myths—all ofthese lead to problems in writing.Myth #1: The “Paint by Numbers” mythSome writers believe they must perform certain steps in a particularorder to write “correctly.” Rather than being a lock-step linear process,writing is “recursive.” That means we cycle through and repeat thevarious activities of the writing process many times as we write.Myth #2: Writers only start writing when they have everythingfigured outWriting is not like sending a fax! Writers figure out much of what theywant to write as they write it. Rather than waiting, get some writingon the page—even with gaps or problems. You can come back to patchup rough spots.Myth #3: Perfect first draftsWe put unrealistic expectations on early drafts, either by focusing toomuch on the impossible task of making them perfect (which can put acap on the development of our ideas), or by making too little effort be-

What Is “Academic” Writing?5cause we don’t care or know about their inevitable problems. Nobodywrites perfect first drafts; polished writing takes lots of revision.Myth #4: Some got it; I don’t—the genius fallacyWhen you see your writing ability as something fixed or out of yourcontrol (as if it were in your genetic code), then you won’t believe youcan improve as a writer and are likely not to make any efforts in thatdirection. With effort and study, though, you can improve as a writer.I promise.Myth #5: Good grammar is good writingWhen people say “I can’t write,” what they often mean is they haveproblems with grammatical correctness. Writing, however, is aboutmore than just grammatical correctness. Good writing is a matter ofachieving your desired effect upon an intended audience. Plus, as wesaw in myth #3, no one writes perfect first drafts.Myth #6: The Five Paragraph EssaySome people say to avoid it at all costs, while others believe no otherway to write exists. With an introduction, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion, the five paragraph essay is a format youshould know, but one which you will outgrow. You’ll have to gaugethe particular writing assignment to see whether and how this formatis useful for you.Myth #7: Never use “I”Adopting this formal stance of objectivity implies a distrust (almostfear) of informality and often leads to artificial, puffed-up prose.Although some writing situations will call on you to avoid using “I”(for example, a lab report), much college writing can be done in amiddle, semi-formal style where it is ok to use “I.”The Academic Writing SituationNow that we’ve dispelled some of the common myths that many writers have as they enter a college classroom, let’s take a moment to thinkabout the academic writing situation. The biggest problem I see infreshman writers is a poor sense of the writing situation in general. To

6L. Lennie Irvinillustrate this problem, let’s look at the difference between speakingand writing.When we speak, we inhabit the communication situation bodilyin three dimensions, but in writing we are confined within the twodimensional setting of the flat page (though writing for the web—ormultimodal writing—is changing all that). Writing resembles havinga blindfold over our eyes and our hands tied behind our backs: wecan’t see exactly whom we’re talking to or where we are. Separatedfrom our audience in place and time, we imaginatively have to createthis context. Our words on the page are silent, so we must use punctuation and word choice to communicate our tone. We also can’t seeour audience to gauge how our communication is being received or ifthere will be some kind of response. It’s the same space we share rightnow as you read this essay. Novice writers often write as if they weremumbling to themselves in the corner with no sense that their writingwill be read by a reader or any sense of the context within which theircommunication will be received.What’s the moral here? Developing your “writer’s sense” aboutcommunicating within the writing situation is the most importantthing you should learn in freshman composition.Figure 1, depicting the writing situation, presents the best image Iknow of describing all the complexities involved in the writing situation.Figure 1. Source: “A Social Model of Writing.” Writing@CSU. 2010. Web.10 March 2010. Used by permission from Mike Palmquist.

What Is “Academic” Writing?7Looking More Closely at the “Academic Writing” SituationWriting in college is a fairly specialized writing situation, and it hasdeveloped its own codes and conventions that you need to have a keenawareness of if you are going to write successfully in college. Let’sbreak down the writing situation in college:Who’s your audience?Primarily the professor and possibly your classmates (though you may be asked to include asecondary outside audience).What’s the occasionor context?An assignment given by the teacher within alearning context and designed to have you learnand demonstrate your learning.What’s your message?It will be your learning or the interpretationgained from your study of the subject matter.What’s your purpose?To show your learning and get a good grade (orto accomplish the goals of the writing assignment).What documents/genres are used?The essay is the most frequent type of document used.So far, this list looks like nothing new. You’ve been writing inschool toward teachers for years. What’s different in college? Lee AnnCarroll, a professor at Pepperdine University, performed a study of student writing in college and had this description of the kind of writingyou will be doing in college:What are usually called ‘writing assignments’ in college might more accurately be called ‘literacy tasks’because they require much more than the ability toconstruct correct sentences or compose neatly organized paragraphs with topic sentences. . . . Projectscalling for high levels of critical literacy in collegetypically require knowledge of research skills, ability to read complex texts, understanding of key disciplinary concepts, and strategies for synthesizing,analyzing, and responding critically to new information, usually within a limited time frame. (3–4)